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Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

Elton Brand has been claimed off amnesty waivers by the Dallas Mavericks, the team announced Friday.

The Mavs won the rights to Brand with a winning bid of $2.1 million, according to sources close to the process.

The league's 30 teams were notified shortly after 5 p.m. ET Friday that the Mavericks had lodged the winning waiver bid for Brand, who was released Wednesday by the Philadelphia 76ers through the amnesty clause in the NBA's new labor agreement.

"Excited," Brand said when reached Friday by ESPN.com. "I figured that I'd be claimed (off waivers) and that's definitely the destination I was hoping for."

The Sixers will still have to pay out the remaining balance of the $18.2 million owed Brand this season in the final year of his contract.

"It's going to be great playing with someone of Dirk Nowitzki's caliber," Brand said. "Chris Kaman is still a really good player and is going to show everybody that. And I've heard a lot of good things about Coach [Rick] Carlisle."

Only teams under the salary cap were eligible to bid on claiming Brand off waivers. He'd have become an unrestricted free agent had he cleared waivers, but the Mavericks were determined not to let the opportunity to claim Brand pass as they continue their recovery from missing out on top free-agent targets Deron Williams and Steve Nash.

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The Mavericks have rallied this week to add Brand, the former All-Star center Kaman and starter-level point guard Darren Collison all on one-year deals, enabling Dallas to preserve maximum salary-cap flexibility for the summer of 2013 and their planned pursuits of stars such as Dwight Howard and Chris Paul.

Dallas signed Kaman to a one-year deal worth $8 million on Wednesday and then completed a sign-and-trade deal Thursday with the Indiana Pacers to import Collison and swingman Dahntay Jones, with center Ian Mahimni joining the Pacers.

Brand said he knows he'll be expected to play center alongside Nowitzki, despite the fact that the German is taller, but the former All-Star, now 33, said he welcomes the opportunity.

"I did it all last season," Brand said of guarding centers. "Of course, there's a few guys we all have trouble with, but I'm not worried about it all."

Basketball isn't played with computers, spreadsheets, and simulations. ChicagoJ 4/21/13

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

The fact that Dallas won Brand with a measly lowball offer is just a shame to me... You can't tell me that we couldn't beat that... We could have made a lowball bid and then sold Tyler for a future 2nd to get back under the lux tax if need be... Poor form FO... Poor form... Shows a lack of respect to the fans of the team, to not try and win Brand...

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

Dallas did a better job than us in rebuilding, DC, DJ, Marion, Dirk, Kaman and Brand off the bench.

More cost-effective true, but I don't know about "better". That's basically a band-aid lineup until they can get cap space again next season, when they go after Howard, Paul, etc.

Regarding Brand though, I can't believe the winning bid on him is just $2.1m. The guy averaged 11 and 7 on good efficiency while being an excellent defender, and that's only worth $2.1m to other teams?

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

The fact that Dallas won Brand with a measly lowball offer is just a shame to me... You can't tell me that we couldn't beat that... We could have made a lowball bid and then sold Tyler for a future 2nd to get back under the lux tax if need be... Poor form FO... Poor form... Shows a lack of respect to the fans of the team, to not try and win Brand...

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Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

If they dont go after Scola, which its looking like that might be the case....well....sad...just sad. 20 million in capspace and what do you have to show for it? Wow. Just wow. Im beginning to understand exactly why Bird left. To go thru all the pains of making over the roster from the brawl fallout. To work hard and have to endure the Troy Murphys and Mike Dunleavys of the world. To clear all that capspace and get to the point of finally being able to make impactful moves and go after game changers.

The offseason has just started...but with HIbbert and Hill now re-signed, most everything that can be done appears to be done. If thats the case....well...its really a pretty massive fail....and yes...it very much appears its totally because of money. As someone else stated....what a shame...its just a damn shame....after all this franchise has been thru the last few years to finally have the opportunity and then to proceed in the fashion that they have...wow...just wow...

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

If they dont go after Scola, which its looking like that might be the case....well....sad...just sad. 20 million in capspace and what do you have to show for it? Wow. Just wow. Im beginning to understand exactly why Bird left. To go thru all the pains of making over the roster from the brawl fallout. To work hard and have to endure the Troy Murphys and Mike Dunleavys of the world. To clear all that capspace and get to the point of finally being able to make impactful moves and go after game changers.

The offseason has just started...but with HIbbert and Hill now re-signed, most everything that can be done appears to be done. If thats the case....well...its really a pretty massive fail....and yes...it very much appears its totally because of money. As someone else stated....what a shame...its just a damn shame....after all this franchise has been thru the last few years to finally have the opportunity and then to proceed in the fashion that they have...wow...just wow...

I'm starting to feel the same way, the 3 or 4 years rebuilding plan has been a fail.

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Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

3rd see in the East, kept a growing nucleus together as they head into their prime, add a potentially better bench, that is a damn shame, well we can always look back on now and remember how terrible it all is and has been. Damn you front office, damn you owner!!! I just can't believe they didn't get this done. This is the worst offseason ever, no the worst basketball team in the history of the NBA, no the history of the world. OMG THE AGONY, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHHHHHH!!!!!!

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

If they dont go after Scola, which its looking like that might be the case....well....sad...just sad. 20 million in capspace and what do you have to show for it? Wow. Just wow. Im beginning to understand exactly why Bird left. To go thru all the pains of making over the roster from the brawl fallout. To work hard and have to endure the Troy Murphys and Mike Dunleavys of the world. To clear all that capspace and get to the point of finally being able to make impactful moves and go after game changers.

The offseason has just started...but with HIbbert and Hill now re-signed, most everything that can be done appears to be done. If thats the case....well...its really a pretty massive fail....and yes...it very much appears its totally because of money. As someone else stated....what a shame...its just a damn shame....after all this franchise has been thru the last few years to finally have the opportunity and then to proceed in the fashion that they have...wow...just wow...

Please explain how it's about money if we just used all of our capspace?

We just added like over $100 million in contracts. And we've been over the cap, sometimes even in the luxury tax area, nearly every year for almost 20 years. The past couple years are the first time that hasn't happened.

You can disagree with the quality of the moves but Simon has shown year after year that he's willing to spend. Naptown Seth wrote a great post about this a day or two ago but I can't find it. Can we please stop with this false meme?

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

Dallas did a better job than us in rebuilding, DC, DJ, Marion, Dirk, Kaman and Brand off the bench.

DC, DJ were not among our best 8 players and have been replaced with better players (Augustin, Green).

I'll take Hibs over Kamen any day, Danny over Marion now.

Dirk being better than West and Brand being a better backup than Mahinmi doesn't make up for the other advantages.

They lost their most effective bench player, Terry, too. We lost what?

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!)

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

If they dont go after Scola, which its looking like that might be the case....well....sad...just sad. 20 million in capspace and what do you have to show for it? Wow. Just wow. Im beginning to understand exactly why Bird left. To go thru all the pains of making over the roster from the brawl fallout. To work hard and have to endure the Troy Murphys and Mike Dunleavys of the world. To clear all that capspace and get to the point of finally being able to make impactful moves and go after game changers.

The offseason has just started...but with HIbbert and Hill now re-signed, most everything that can be done appears to be done. If thats the case....well...its really a pretty massive fail....and yes...it very much appears its totally because of money. As someone else stated....what a shame...its just a damn shame....after all this franchise has been thru the last few years to finally have the opportunity and then to proceed in the fashion that they have...wow...just wow...

I don't know why you're so depressed. I'm quite happy with what the Pacers have done. To preface - we didn't pay much last year because we had so many players who were still playing on their rookie contracts and were far outperforming their worth. You can't expect our guys to keep on accepting the same amount of money once their contracts are up when they've played so well. You also can't expect to keep them if you lowball them. Hill and Hibbert needed to be paid significantly more given that their rookie contracts were up. We kept our starting lineup in tact, AND we upgraded our bench. We addressed our big man depth problem and we didn't overreach on any player. We didn't overpay (ex. Batum 4 year 46.5mil or Lin 3 year 25 mil) and instead, we got great deals on Gerald Green and DJ Augustin at about 3.3-3.5mil/year each. Just to throw it out there, I think paying Mayo 7mil+/year is overpaying given his production the past few seasons. Its easy to be enamored by big name players, but thats likely exactly why they get paid so much.

Just because we don't know what Ian Mahinmi does, doesn't mean that he's a bad player. Yes, it seems like we could have gotten more for Collison, but bottom line is, Collison wasn't really working for us, wanted to be starter, is going to command much more money next year once his rookie contract is up, and Mahinmi only cost us 16mil/4years while other bigmen of similar caliberhave been EASILY been paid double that amount.

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!)

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

If they dont go after Scola, which its looking like that might be the case....well....sad...just sad.

there is no "if" anymore.

We can't bid on Scola even if we were to trade Tyler, Lance, Pendy for nothing but draft picks, and also give away the draft rights to Plum and OJ.

The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!)

Re: Mavs pick up Brand for 2.1 million

As long as we are stuck with Hansbrough, we weren't going to put a bid in imo. They've spent quite a bit of money so far. If we were able to flip Hans for Augustin, I think we would have put a bid in on Brand or Scola.